The contractor that renovated the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool has told the Trump administration that errors in its own work and flaws in the repair plan, not vandalism, caused the pool’s new blue liner to peel and break loose, according to government documents reviewed by the New York Times.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed vandals wielding knives or box cutters for damage to the pool’s “American flag blue” liner, even after the Justice Department dropped charges that it had brought against people accused of vandalizing the national landmark.

But the documents, which have not previously been reported, make clear that the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, found problems in the design and the execution of the renovation. The documents include Atlantic’s reports to the government as well as daily progress updates from the National Park Service over the past two months.

Atlantic blamed its own errors in a report dated Aug. 14 and then provided more detail Sept. 2, the documents show. The Justice Department, which had charged several people with vandalizing the pool in early July, began moving to dismiss the cases July 31.

Because of “human oversight,” workers in some areas did not spray enough of the primer that made the layers of the liner stick together, Atlantic said in the documents. But the bigger problem, the company said, was that the repair plan laid out in the contract called for the layers of liner to include two chemicals that turned out to be incompatible.

In a hurry to finish the work before the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4, the government bypassed competition and gave Atlantic a no-bid contract to carry out an untested approach.

The government has agreed to pay Atlantic $14.7 million for its work. The contractor has said it will repair the pool, which is under warranty, again.

Katie Martin, a spokesperson for the Interior Department, did not directly address questions about the contractor’s findings but issued a statement that appeared to continue blaming vandals for the damage, saying that they had “repeatedly reached into the pool and ripped at the coating.”

Martin said Atlantic was now “well on its way” to repairing the pool. She did not say when it would be refilled.

Representatives for Atlantic did not respond to requests for comment.